


The problem with real fiction

by ToxicPineapple



Series: Femslash February 2020 [12]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (That's the prompt), Akamatsu Kaede Character Study, Angst, Canon-Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/F, Femslash February, Hurt/No Comfort, Introspection, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, Pregame Headcanons, Shirogane Tsumugi Character Study, Talking about Pregame, another world - Freeform, implied romantic feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22556215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicPineapple/pseuds/ToxicPineapple
Summary: But Tsumugi can’t help thinking about it every time the other girl speaks to her. She is in the courtyard, watching the exisals do yardwork, holding in her hands a dusty encyclopedia from the library, and the scent of honeysuckle drifts over her shoulder, blonde hair brushing against her cheek.“We’re friends, aren’t we, Shirogane?” Kaede smiles. Tsumugi gives her as vague a smile as ever, raising her eyebrows.“Of course,” she says. In six chapters these words will be painful.---In another world, they might have been something different.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Shirogane Tsumugi
Series: Femslash February 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616182
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	The problem with real fiction

**Author's Note:**

> written for femslash february day twelve! the prompt is "another world"

In another world, they might have been friends.

Kaede stands in front of her, a sweet, curious smile on her face, and doesn’t hesitate before poking her on the cheek, bugging Shuchi into doing the same. Her flirtatiousness, her obliviousness, these are things that Tsumugi wrote into her. The real Kaede Akamatsu would never be so dense. But there are things, like the dimple in her smile, the way she shifts from one foot to the other, the smell of her shampoo, honeysuckle… that no flashback light could have any hope of fabricating. These things are purely Kaede and nobody else. Nothing else.

There are other things that they can’t make up, no matter how hard they try. Muscle memory is one of them. The Kaede Akamatsu who signed up for Danganronpa was already an excellent pianist. She was bitter, though, and harsh in ways that the protagonist Kaede could never be. She was cynical, or perhaps merely realistic. The Kaede she has become is blindly optimistic. Hopeful, in the way that any good protagonist should be. Tsumugi has always preferred the ones with wide, bright eyes. The more skeptical ones are… amusing at best. Grating at worst. Besides, this is what the old Kaede Akamatsu wanted. She wanted some faith in humanity. Tsumugi had no problem giving her that.

And if this Kaede Akamatsu was a real person, and if Tsumugi herself was a real person, then in another world, they would be very good friends. In a world where there are Ultimate Talents, where Hope’s Peak Academy was a real place, where Makoto Naegi and everyone else really were the people they said they were, not child actors… that is a world where Tsumugi and Kaede could have been friends.

(In that world, perhaps the programmed flirtatiousness that Tsumugi instilled her with would be real flirtatiousness. Her compliments would be more than meaningless sentiments from what is essentially a robot standing before her. In that world, Tsumugi would allow herself to flush red at them, embarrassed but flattered to be told she’s beautiful by such a lovely girl as Kaede Akamatsu, and then maybe someday they would hold hands, and laugh together at jokes that would be only theirs. In that world Kaede’s lips would taste sweet like chapstick-- something borrowed from the old Kaede Akamatsu-- and her voice would be melodic except when she uses it to sing, and Tsumugi would love it more than she loves anything else, even the greatest cosplay in the world.)

But there is no friendship between a mastermind and a protagonist. Kaede doesn’t know as much, won’t, for six more chapters, but Tsumugi can’t help thinking about it every time the other girl speaks to her. She is in the courtyard, watching the exisals do yardwork, holding in her hands a dusty encyclopedia from the library, and the scent of honeysuckle drifts over her shoulder, blonde hair brushing against her cheek.

“We’re friends, aren’t we, Shirogane?” Kaede smiles. Tsumugi gives her as vague a smile as ever, raising her eyebrows.

“Of course,” she says. In six chapters these words will be painful. On the stand, perhaps Kaede will cry. (Though by that point, she’ll have cried plenty already; Tsumugi hasn’t decided whether Shuichi will be the victim or the culprit in chapter five yet, but whatever happens, it will be absolutely heartbreaking. For the audience, of course, but for Kaede most of all. They are so very close already.) But right now they are reassuring, because her plum eyes light up and she beams. Her lips leave a bit of chapstick on Tsumugi’s cheek.

In another world, there would be no time limit motives, no Rantaro leaving himself notes and hints, no Shuichi scattering dust on the card reader. No plans. No whispers of a mastermind keeping them all trapped there.

(That’s the problem with real fiction, Tsumugi could only tone down Shuichi’s intellect with so much anxiety, could only inhibit Rantaro’s instincts with so much distrust, and they are so  _ brilliant,  _ they will surely ruin everything.)

In another world, Motherkuma wouldn’t whisper to Tsumugi of a shot put ball tucked into Kaede’s backpack in the middle of the night when she sneaks out for a visit, and the solution to her problem would not be so abundantly clear. Really, Tsumugi just wishes for a world where the thought of what she has to do doesn’t make a pit open in her stomach. She pretends that she is mourning the loss of an excellent protagonist, that she’ll have to attempt a plot twist that has never been done before. She pretends that it has nothing to do with Kaede’s lighthearted flirts, her long yellow eyelashes.

In another world, Kaede would succeed the first time, and Tsumugi wouldn’t have to leave the hidden room at all, wouldn’t have to soak her arm in Rantaro Amami’s blood and steal that goddamn perk after he’s crumpled to the ground.

And Tsumugi could turn herself in as the killer, allow the game to continue without a mastermind, because of course it  _ could;  _ Monokuma is an AI, and Team Danganronpa is brilliant, they’d figure something out. But a protagonist who has attempted murder is not a protagonist that the audience would be pleased by. A sacrifice is heartbreaking, but a narrow escape is dissatisfying. In another world, Tsumugi would care more about Kaede than Danganronpa, and she would sacrifice herself for her, as one ought to do in her position.

But most of all, most of all, in another world, the Kaede Akamatsu that was would never have been in the first place. Because the Kaede Akamatsu that was was the only one who was capable of murder. The Kaede Akamatsu who Tsumugi created, who she loves, she was no murderer. She was not supposed to be a blackened. She was the bright-eyed protagonist. She was optimistic. She believed in her friends. In people.

Flashback lights can only change so much though, and when one’s disbelief in people cuts so very, very deep, there is simply nothing that can be done about it.

(In another world, Tsumugi would not have failed the Kaede Akamatsu that was before. And Kaede would not have failed her, either.)

They might have been friends. They might have been more than that.

Instead Kaede swings from the large piano, a deafening silence echoing through the court room, and despite herself Tsumugi closes her eyes before the lid slams down.

(She still hears the crunch, though, and that night, in the privacy of her room, she throws up. In another world, she might not have cared.)

**Author's Note:**

> i know, i know, angst
> 
> i don't usually write,,,, kaemugi,,,,,,,, in the canon universe,,,,
> 
> but damn this one was too good to pass up. it's uhhh february fourth rn, or it will be in four minutes, but y'know. i'm vibing. you're vibing. we're both vibing. that's the goal
> 
> bro this piece really do got me in my feels tho
> 
> also yea i know i said i was tired and planning to sleep but like...... i peeked at the prompt and was like Oh Worm and i wrote a thousand words. sue me
> 
> anyway y'all lit af
> 
> update: posting this like twenty minutes early bc im tired and dont wanna stay up til midnight today. cheers.


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